Amazing Grace. Abounding Joy. Abundant Love.

Friday, January 10, 2014

A friend of mine is expecting her second daughter. She ask me to make her girls matchy but not identical quilts using her favorite colors - pink, yellow, teal & green. I used the same pattern for both quilts and almost all the same fabrics. She wanted to be able to tell the quilts apart at just a glance and for them to have some sort of distinctive feature. So after talking about the options she decided she wanted to use one different focus fabric in each quilt - different animals. One quilt has yellow elephants and the other has pink whales. I also used pink binding on one and teal binding on the other to make them extra easy to tell apart without having to look for the animals.

I think they turned out adorable and I hope she loves them as much as I do! I'm interested to see which one big sister E picks to be hers and which one she passes on to baby sis. ﻿

The best side by side I could get in my living room. This was before they were washed. After the wash they both got super soft and crinkly, making them even better! I did straight line quilting on both quilts that outlines the 6 inch squares. I like this amount of quilting on quilts for kids. They have a nice drape and snuggly-ness. They both finished at 43 x 55 inches. I must admit that I was a little impressed with myself that they actually finished at the exact same size (even though that is totally what was suppose to happen since they are the same pattern/blocks/fabric/etc)!!!

pink whales with teal binding

close up of the pink whales

I pieced the back on both quilts and just like the front - they look the same but with different fabric placement.

Close up of the back. I didn't have enough of this adorable (and perfect color match!) bird fabric to add it to the front of the quilts, so I think it makes the back more interesting and special.

Friday, August 23, 2013

One day during nap time I was planning on folding clothes, but as I opened my closet I saw the pile of WIPs sitting on the shelf and just HAD to finish one. The funny thing is that this is a pretty small quilt that should NOT have been neglected in the pile for so long. I got the whole thing basted and quilted during nap time Wednesday and finished the binding during nap time on Thursday.

I've had the top and back done for - dare I say - years. :/ The front is the disappearing 9-patch pattern. And the fabric is Flights of Fancy by Paula Prass.

I love the way the stripe binding turned out!

Not the best picture of the back of the quilt, but I love that my daughter was "helping" me take pictures. She brought her own camera outside and actually took a couple of good ones! And you get the idea for the back. 5 7x7in blocks to showcase the fabric from the front. I love having a good amount of white in a quilt and there isn't any on the front, so the back was just begging for all that white!

And my second finish for the week is this dress for my daughter to wear to her first day of preschool! The alphabet print is adorable and my daughter loves the ruffle on the bottom. I'm excited and oh-so-nervous for September 3rd - sending my first baby out into the world of school. She is beyond thrilled and is counting down the days!

I'm linking up with Finish it up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts. There are so many awesome finishes over there already! I can get lost for hours just jumping from blog to blog checking out all the fantastic projects - which is perfect for this rainy Friday night!

Thursday, August 15, 2013

I've been honing my super power of thinking in fragments lately. Luckily I have a wonderful place to keep track of them all and then share them with the world. Half-Past Kissing Time has got insider info on all the folks with this particular super power so I'm linking up there!

Boys and girls are so different! Obviously I knew this before, but having one of each has really driven the point home for me. Caroline got a doll house for her birthday and she loves to set up the furniture, fix dinner and put the family to bed - normal doll house stuff. Nathan also loves the doll house! But he uses the roof as a ramp to launch his cars across the room! Love 'em!!

Just hanging in my living room I happen to look out the front window and see 2 cops following a bloodhound through my yard, to the neighbors yard, down the road behind my house and circle back around to our circle. They were here sniffing around for a good 15 minutes. For someone who likes to be in the know - this made me pretty nervous! Found out later that 2 people were robbed at gun point one street over 4 days ago. No bueno!!!

I just finished buying all of Caroline's very first school supplies. She is soooo excited about school. And I looooove school supplies and back to school everything. But this was bittersweet indeed. How can my tiny girl be old enough to go to preschool?! Kindergarten is going to be a hard one for this mom!

Pintrest is great and I spend a lot of time dreaming about all the things I could decorate, make, eat & wear. But I discovered something this week. It is even more fantastic if you actually DO some of the stuff you pin!!! I made 5 different pintrest recipes this week! 1 breakfast, 3 dinners and 1 dessert. I'm blown away with this revelation!! Game changer for me and the way I actually use pintrest!

Nathan lost a shoe during our vacation a month ago. I still have the other one. It's not like I'm going to drive 4 hours to go back and search for the missing one again. It's not like he can only wear the right one. It's not like I'm going to go to the crocs store and they are going to say, "Why yes! We do have an extra size 5 left shoe. Here ya go!" But I just cant throw it away. It seems like a waste. I have hoarder problems!

Friday, August 9, 2013

A friend ask me to make her a Mickey Mouse Rag Quilt. Her niece is having a little boy at the end of the summer and is doing the nursery in a Mickey theme.

Finding Mickey fabric that I liked (that wasn't going to have to be shipped from Japan!) was a lot harder than I expected. At one point I even ask her if she really wanted an image of Mickey in the quilt or if a red, yellow and black quilt would be close enough. She said either would work but she thought her niece would like it better if Mickey was actually in the quilt. The vision in my head had me looking for red fabric with just a classic black Mickey head - that was IMPOSSIBLE - so my final requirement was that it be the more modern Mickey and not have Minnie on the fabric.

I still wasn't completely sold on the Mickey fabric I found. Mostly because it has blue in it and I'm just not a blue & black together kind of girl. But the Mickey sure is cute! In the end I'm glad I used actual Mickey fabric in this quilt. I think it ties it all together perfectly.

I think it turned out really nice and my friend's niece loves it! That's the most important thing!!

I love when friends ask me to create something special just for them or their loved ones! It is absolutely my pleasure to take something they are envisioning and make it a reality.

I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday over on Crazy Mom Quilts. Have a great weekend everyone!!

Back when she was potty training she use to get tic-tacs for her potty reward. She still likes to get them out of my purse every now and then. From day one she has always called them "chapsticks." (But she knows what chapstick is and uses the term correctly when she wants lip balm.)

Monday, July 22, 2013

We went on a little mini family trip the end of last week and over the weekend. Here's what I learned...

A 3 year old and a 1 year old can not successfully nap or maintain a bed time in a one room hotel room.

The hotel pool is awesome to entertain and exhaust children, but MY children are TERRIFIED when anyone goes under water. They will cry & scream like they just witnessed a beheading!

All the gross hotel reports that you've seen on the news but try to put out of your mind will come screeching back as you follow a 1 year old around the room reminding him not to put anything in his mouth for the love of God!

Going to a theme park when it is 100* is not the worst idea we've ever had. The place was empty, giving out lots of free ice water, had water rides to cool off, misting stations and the kids were entertained enough that they didn't notice the heat.

Going to the zoo when it is 100* IS (one of) the worst ideas we've ever had. There were NO animals out. Because, well, it's too flipping hot outside! There was very little shade. There were a lot of sweaty (read stinky - by the end, I was one of them!) people there. The hills... walking up the hills... in the heat... almost killed me! The children were NOT entertained (since all the animals were inside sleeping & eating ice chips) and therefore noticed the heat.

Always check & double check that the 1 year old is wearing BOTH of his shoes. Do NOT wait until you are leaving aforementioned zoo to do a shoe check because one WILL be missing and you will have no idea where you lost it in the last 2 hours of hot, sweaty, humid, animal-less torture. Shoe will be gone forever.

Suddenly the 3 year old will refuse to eat like normal and insist that she only likes chicken nuggets and ice cream now. There will be an aunt close at hand to make sure she never runs out of either one. Going home to fruit & veggies will not be fun!

After sleeping in the hotel bed with mom and/or dad for several consecutive nights, children will no longer want to sleep in their own room upon returning home. If you thought the sleep torture was over - you are wrong!

Sleep deprived, nutritionally defunct, hot children are not good at riding in the car.

No matter how long you were gone, you will come home with approximately 207,562 loads of laundry and it will take you 3 times longer than you were gone to get it all washed.

You will plan to do this again - soon - because you can still remember these same kinds of crazy memories from your own childhood and you don't want to keep your children from the same pleasure.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

This is my fourth year doing a Project Life album and I'm more excited about it than ever before. And I think that mostly comes from me finally finding my groove. The first year I got quite behind and when I tried to catch up I ended up with a good number of pictures scattered through the book but with very little journaling after about mid-year. The 2nd year I got behind again, but would attempt a major catch up about every 4ish months or so. That album came pretty close to being done, but there were still more weeks than I would have liked that were light on the pictures/journaling. The 3rd year I tried to do it EVERY week to avoid getting behind. That worked, but only until I had a baby and then I got behind on printing pictures and putting journaling in the album again. The difference was that I didn't stop organizing my pictures. So when it was time to print it was still super easy. Having several months to do at a time is daunting, but I did it. It was my first FINISHED book. I was thrilled!!

Through trial and error over the years, I've found that the best way for me to do it is a month at a time. I print my pictures though Snapfish and if I try to print much more often than that the shipping charges start getting out of control. I can also usually find a good print deal about once a month to help keep the cost low.

4 to 5 weeks is also a good number of weeks for me to work on at a time once the pictures get here. It makes it worth getting all my stuff out. And I can usually get it all done in 2 to 3 nights working after the kids go to bed.

It also keeps me excited about digging through my stash, planning layouts, and seeing the book develop. Usually after a couple of weeks I start really missing it and I can't wait to print the pictures and get back to it.

Now on to the pics!! For this week I am sharing the week of July 1-7. **Please excuse my toes! :) **

This is the whole spread. I love the month dividers to break up the album and making searching for a certain week easier! This week has one insert.

The left side of the week includes a July calendar (I include one in the first spread of each month). I trimmed down one of the 4x6 date cards to use in a 3x4 space and included journaling under the date.

This is the front of the insert for this week. I used a We R Memory Keepers page that had 6 vertical spaces. Since I like my inserts to be smaller than 12x12 in some way I trimmed off one column of the pockets. I also just got a photo pen and I am loving writing on some of the pictures. I can't wait for Becky Higgins pens to become available on Amazon or at my Michael's!!

The back of the insert is just pictures of our day at the beach.

The right side of the spread is broken into 2 columns. The left side is a continuation of the back of the insert and includes a 4x6 journaling card all about our day at the beach. Then the right side is all about our 4th of July.

The Crafty Crow

About Me

I'm a stay-at-home mom with a 2 year old, Caroline (Scoot) and a 6 month old, Nathan (Moose). My husband and 2 great danes round out the family.
I use to be a Kindergarten teacher, and miss having a classroom full of kiddos to call my own. Scoot and I have little school moments throughout the day to make up for it.
I love to be creative and will try anything once. My favorite crafts involve fabric! But I'm not picky!